module 3

For module 3 all the readings, videos, and events were close to home for me. To begin with Lanham argues that, “No attention gives you ‘raw data’. Some attention gives you massaged data. Lots of attention gives you useful information. Maximal attention gives you ‘wisdom’”.  This quote summed up and tied up all the articles and videos together in the following ways. When trying to obtain the audience’s attention one must try to do so by giving the audience what they think they want to hear. For example, in a commercial attention is obtained by either lying with words, numbers, or images as well as persuasion because that is the best way to obtain the audience’s attention. The duty of the audience in gathering their information aside from using their core concepts in deciphering the message sent from the media, is to obtain the information and try to separate facts from lies. Attention is a big part of media because the main objective of media is to send their message across and in order to do so one must obtain the audience attention. Although attention is a big part of media I think it has made it difficult for teachers to obtain the attention of students because of media.

Some information that was very surprising and eye opening to me statistics provided by The Poor Will Always Be With Us. In this article, I learned that one in eight Americans live below federal poverty line. Also, in this article it is explained how the poor are not being represented on screen and what is usually being done to help are food banks, as well as increasing minimum wage. I think that because people below the poverty line are being misrepresented and true information is not adequately given, there is not much help handed to help end poverty. For example, many people think that poverty is being homeless, but what we seem to forget was a reminder in the YouTube videos. In the videos, we are reminded that many children are going about their day hungry. I was a student who looked forward to going to school because I would receive my only warm meal during lunch time, or waking up early just so that I was able to have breakfast. It wasn’t that my mom did not provide food, rather that as one got older I saw how weak my mother began to get because she would not eat to feed us. So soon I began to learn to eat at school so she would eat at home. Most of the children in the videos stated that their only meals were at school or adults stating that they are tired of living from paycheck to paycheck. This is what media should show as poverty, any family household earning below $19,000 a year.